The Parking Lot Crier

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

2118

Abstract

r, this is the state GOP. The Dems are basically the spouse with no power in this relationship. A few examples:</li></ul><blockquote id="e8cb"><p>The governor recently received over 5,000 emails and phone calls about a bill designed to effectively eliminate voter-led initiatives. All but 100 of those contacts urged him to veto it. BUT HE STILL F*UCKING SIGNED IT.</p></blockquote><blockquote id="4861"><p>A state rep not only used “<i>To Kill a Mockingbird”</i> as an example of critical race theory that needs to be banned from our schools but said (and I wanna be very clear this is a fucking in-session quote from a state representative in 2021): “[the English class] …it’s been riddled with writings from third-world experiences by authors that are completely unheard of, but they are non-white race. So any non-white author is basically being given priority over the historical readings.”</p></blockquote><ul><li>(This latter language I believe was lifted, without credit, from a KKK pamphlet she found in her grandfather’s closet. This was after he passed, you’ll remember, and the kids started cleaning out the craftsman, too much house for one man but, searching for the rumored buckets of silver and $100 bills in dusty books…)</li></ul><blockquote id="5a50"><p>(Metaphors are my Elvis, ICYMI)</p></blockquote><h2 id="b6f2">Anyway.</h2><ul><li>Rhetorical question of the day: At what point is it okay to consider leaving? When you have kids and don’t want them denied a decent education? When you come to terms with the fact that you have no real “native” ties to this state, this land? (And aside from indigenous people, who can really make that claim?) When you make piece with the idea that you’re only one person (like, say, an emotional ex-vangelical with a bad back), and your responsibility should always be to the people you love and who love you, and those you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis? I don’t know the answer.</li><li>I think about the folks I graduated high school with, who remained in my tiny, rural hometown. Specifically the ones who are fighting to make that place more

Options

livable, in the local government or social programs or the arts or small businesses. “Thank god,” I think. But I have no judgement for those who left. Not a bit. Not only because I’m one of them but also because I can’t blame anyone who decides they can’t fight that fight, that the boundaries are too tight or opportunities too little. Or simply that the depression of seeing a boarded up grocery store, nothing open after 9pm, and the local popo doing vulgar TikTok responses to Lebron is too much for them to personally take on. Who the fuck am I to tell people they have to stay and fight? Especially when it might destroy them, or invite destruction upon them.</li></ul><h2 id="63ee">So.</h2><ul><li>If your goal, dear patriots, was to “own the libs,” to make us “cry again,” I’ll raise my hand and ask for a tissue. (Even with the bully barker getting handed his ass in the last election, even with relatively good policy come out of the current administration.) Congratulations on winning the Gold Bond in your locker room olympics. You’ve done it. I’m crying, neighbor. Unashamedly. I’m not sure how watching a nobody like me mourn — for cancelled voting rights, for a lack of education funding, for the brutal array of sexist and anti-LGBTQA laws, for the slow-motion trainwreck of climate change, etc. — is improving your life, in any way. Not sure how it helps you retire at a decent age or pay your healthcare bills or, fuck, not lose your shit over increased commute times, but you’re fulfilling the wish on the bumpersticker of that truck you can’t afford, Kaiden.</li><li>I’m torn up, dooders. A weepy, privileged little parking lot crier choking on his leftover burrito, watching my more vulnerable friends search for affordable housing, or better schools or careers, or out-of-market jobs that’ll give them a reason to move. I’m searching for the will to keep writing letters and donating and voting, even as I’m keeping an eye on the exit. What the fuck is the right answer (not for everyone but for me)?</li><li>James Baldwin, Julien Baker, Domingo: Guide my sword. Please</li></ul></article></body>

We’re a nation still being shaped by the stunted children of a nouveau riche robber baron.

The most recent metaphor I’ve been chewing on: the US is an underdeveloped nation. We’re a country still being whittled by the stunted children of a nouveau riche robber baron — a faux-intellectual barker of “personal liberty” who bumbled and bullied, enslaved and slaughtered his way into obscene wealth and fame, before leaving the kids to grow up without ever maturing. We are all: descendants of the barker — with majority, minority, or zero stake in the family business; the descendants of those the barker maimed or murdered, rolled or raped; or a mix of the two. And because the majority stakeholders have a vested interest in keeping their stolen wealth and power intact, the rest are left to fight for change, fight for scraps, and sometimes a little of both (depending on the bills due and people crashing on their couch).

I feel pummeled and forlorn, coffee pot breaking in my hands.

Case in point.

Our state representatives have given up on anything that could be construed as “representing.” Instead, they’re adopting the role of the conservative Christian father figure, out of step with anyone but other white-haired Bostons, the head-of-household fraternal order of “papa knows best”: they’re punishing any kids asking too many tough questions or seeking to make their own decisions or seeking to make the household more equitable; they have shit boundaries; and they’re enacting my-house-my-rules designed to clip the wings of anyone who disagrees with them. To be clear, this is the state GOP. The Dems are basically the spouse with no power in this relationship. A few examples:

The governor recently received over 5,000 emails and phone calls about a bill designed to effectively eliminate voter-led initiatives. All but 100 of those contacts urged him to veto it. BUT HE STILL F*UCKING SIGNED IT.

A state rep not only used “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an example of critical race theory that needs to be banned from our schools but said (and I wanna be very clear this is a fucking in-session quote from a state representative in 2021): “[the English class] …it’s been riddled with writings from third-world experiences by authors that are completely unheard of, but they are non-white race. So any non-white author is basically being given priority over the historical readings.”

(This latter language I believe was lifted, without credit, from a KKK pamphlet she found in her grandfather’s closet. This was after he passed, you’ll remember, and the kids started cleaning out the craftsman, too much house for one man but, searching for the rumored buckets of silver and $100 bills in dusty books…)

(Metaphors are my Elvis, ICYMI)

Anyway.

Rhetorical question of the day: At what point is it okay to consider leaving? When you have kids and don’t want them denied a decent education? When you come to terms with the fact that you have no real “native” ties to this state, this land? (And aside from indigenous people, who can really make that claim?) When you make piece with the idea that you’re only one person (like, say, an emotional ex-vangelical with a bad back), and your responsibility should always be to the people you love and who love you, and those you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis? I don’t know the answer.

I think about the folks I graduated high school with, who remained in my tiny, rural hometown. Specifically the ones who are fighting to make that place more livable, in the local government or social programs or the arts or small businesses. “Thank god,” I think. But I have no judgement for those who left. Not a bit. Not only because I’m one of them but also because I can’t blame anyone who decides they can’t fight that fight, that the boundaries are too tight or opportunities too little. Or simply that the depression of seeing a boarded up grocery store, nothing open after 9pm, and the local popo doing vulgar TikTok responses to Lebron is too much for them to personally take on. Who the fuck am I to tell people they have to stay and fight? Especially when it might destroy them, or invite destruction upon them.

So.

If your goal, dear patriots, was to “own the libs,” to make us “cry again,” I’ll raise my hand and ask for a tissue. (Even with the bully barker getting handed his ass in the last election, even with relatively good policy come out of the current administration.) Congratulations on winning the Gold Bond in your locker room olympics. You’ve done it. I’m crying, neighbor. Unashamedly. I’m not sure how watching a nobody like me mourn — for cancelled voting rights, for a lack of education funding, for the brutal array of sexist and anti-LGBTQA laws, for the slow-motion trainwreck of climate change, etc. — is improving your life, in any way. Not sure how it helps you retire at a decent age or pay your healthcare bills or, fuck, not lose your shit over increased commute times, but you’re fulfilling the wish on the bumpersticker of that truck you can’t afford, Kaiden.

I’m torn up, dooders. A weepy, privileged little parking lot crier choking on his leftover burrito, watching my more vulnerable friends search for affordable housing, or better schools or careers, or out-of-market jobs that’ll give them a reason to move. I’m searching for the will to keep writing letters and donating and voting, even as I’m keeping an eye on the exit. What the fuck is the right answer (not for everyone but for me)?

James Baldwin, Julien Baker, Domingo: Guide my sword. Please